A post to deal with mid-September last year. On a dull Sunday, after a walk around Jenny Brown’s Point with TBH, I went to Lambert’s Meadow and took a few photos of spiders and a lot of photos of snails. Do snails breed in September? I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in one visit.
More banded snails.Cottage at Silverdale Green.Another cottage at Silverdale Green.
On the following weekend, the second Morecambe Poetry festival took place at the Winter Gardens. This time TBH joined me and we went to see the headline poets on both the Friday and Saturday nights; first Brian Bilston and Henry Normal, then Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. Fabulous.
Morecambe Winter Gardens.
The line up for this year’s festival looks every bit as enticing, hopefully TBH will join me again.
I saw Lemn Sissay at the first festival and years ago when I lived in Manchester and likewise, I saw Mike Harding live several times, but not for a very long time. This time, two BBC programmes – Loose Ends and The Verb – will be broadcast live from the festival. Things are on the up and up, both for Morecambe and for the Winter Gardens.
On the Sunday of that weekend, TBH had a mission to perform.
Hazelwood Hall.
She took me to Heald Brow with a hand drawn map she’d been given by a colleague.
TBH on Heald Brow – Bowland Fells on the horizon.
The map showed the location of…
Heald Brow fossilised Nautiloid.
I’ve heard about this impressive fossil a few times from friends in the village, but have never actually managed to find it. With the aid of TBH’s map, we found it this time almost immediately. It’s hard to spot because it’s generally covered with a piece of turf which you’re supposed to replace, although I’m not sure why.
A skein of geese.Post sunset light at The Cove.
Later, I was out again for a wander to the Cove and across the Lots.
After years of not putting out food for the birds because our cats were a bit too interested, we’ve now realised that our one remaining cat is too old, fat and slow (I sympathise) to do any harm anymore. I snaffled a number of feeders from my parents a while ago and since TBH strung them all up (the feeders, not my parents!) from the Silver Birch by our kitchen window they have been giving me a great deal of pleasure ever since.
Starling eating dried meal-worms.Starling on our beech hedge.
Expect a lot more photos of our very varied visitors as I catch-up (ho ho) with the intervening six-months or so.
The Cove – The Lots – Woodwell – Heald Brow – Clark’s Lot – Silverdale Green – Burtonwell Wood – Lambert’s Meadow – The Row – Eaves Wood – Castlebarrow
Early September light at The Cove.Speckled Wood ButterflyElderberries.Autumn Lady’s Tresses on The Lots. already gone over.A drone fly on Ragwort – maybe Eristalis Tenax.Hoverfly – Syrphus species.Hawthorn on Heald Brow festooned with berries.Looking south from Heald Brow to a hazy view of the Forest of Bowland.Heald Brow.Red Admiral.Speckled Wood.Lambert’s MeadowRagged Robin.I watched…..the precision and industry……of this orb weaver hard at work……for ages.Another, smaller spider on an another amazing edifice.Green Shield Bug.Green Shield Bug nymph, final instar I think.A very dry path in Eaves Wood – it isn’t like that now!Castlebarrow: Warton Crag, Clougha Pike, The Pepperpot.
Two more local strolls from the back end of August. The first was a quick trip to The Cove and around The Lots, with TBH, but since she wasn’t ready to leave the house when I was, I first walked across the fields to Stankelt road and around Clark’s Lot first.
Looking towards Grange from the Cove.And the other way from the Cove.Garden Spider.
This spider was in our garden, but only just, hanging just beyond one of our kitchen windows.
The following day I walked our circuit around Jenny Brown’s Point, but had a mooch around Lambert’s Meadow first. This slight path runs around the eastern edge of the meadow…
Lambert’s Meadow – very wet.
It’s where I take most of my photos – you can see here that’s it under a couple of inches of water, which isn’t uncommon at all in the winter, but which shows what a wet August we were having.
Harlequin Ladybird, with a raindrop on its back.Wet Guelder Rose berries.A couple of wasps and a fly.Hoverfly, possibly Eristalis arbustorum.Bog Hoverfly – Sericomyia silentis, I think.
“This is a large and brightly marked hoverfly, with 3 pairs of wedge-shaped yellow bars and reddish-orange legs.” It prefers wet heath, so Lambert’s Meadow is the right sort of spot.
The light wasn’t great, but there was plenty to see and photograph. In particular, a variety of snails seemed to be having some sort of rave. They were everywhere.
Garden Snail.Banded Snail.A slug and a few snails.
There were actually several more snails on these two tall stems, who knows why they were so busy that day?
Probably the Banded Snail from the photo above – White-lipped.Two more White-lipped Snails.Crane Fly.Pirate Wold Spider – Pirata piraticus. Female carrying an egg sac.A very hairy bee – I don’t know which kind.A fly.Harlequin Ladybird Larva.A ladybird chrysalis – also possibly a Harlequin.
On my way down to Jenny Brown’s, I emerged from Fleagarth Woods into a small clearing which was mobbed with wildflowers, especially Common Knapweed. The flowers were really busy with bees and hoverflies, so of course, I took no end of photos.
A patch of wildflowers, mostly Common Knapweed.Hoverfly – a Syrphus species.Hoverfly – Pellucid Fly – Volucella pellucens.Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus).Drone Fly, possibly Eristalis Tenax, the Common Drone Fly.Hoverfly – Helophilus Pendulus – The Footballer. On Sneezewort.Honey Bee and a fly.Honey Bee on Common Knapweed.A tiny micro-moth.
My roaming through the flowers disturbed this frog…
A frog!
Had I realised how many different species of hoverfly were in that little clearing, I probably would have stayed to take even more photos, but until I got home to download and look at the photos I wasn’t aware of the variety.
Speckled Wood Butterfly.Honey Bee on Traveller’s Joy flowers.Traveller’s Joy flowers.Traveller’s Joy seeds.Looking towards Grange from Jack Scout.
Dr A, W, M, B and S on the Balancing Tree in the Ring of Beeches.
Our Peak District trip was timed to fit in with a visit from my brother-in-law, Dr A and his family. We didn’t have them for long and were keen to pack a lot in. First of all, a walk in Eaves Wood.
Dr A and B on the same branch in 2008. Silverdale from Castlebarrow.TBH and Dr S at The Cove.W has been clambering on the rocks, and swimming in the mud.
Since our American relatives needed to be back in County Durham, we decided to head that way and to rendezvous by Brougham Castle. Now, note: Brougham Castle, not Brough Castle which is nearby. Since I’d been very careful to point out the similarity of names and locations, we knew as we waited near Brougham Castle that they couldn’t possibly have made the mistake of going to Brough instead. After all, maps are pretty much Dr A’s area of professional expertise.
Brougham Castle and the River Eamont.
With a little time to kill whilst Dr A drove his family the short distance back from Brough to Brougham, we decided to detour slightly to have a peek around Brougham Hall, which is free and always worth a gander.
Brougham Hall.Brougham Hall.Brougham Hall, the Chancellor’s Den.
There’s more about the Hall and the Castle, and cute photos of the kids when they were little, from a previous visit here.
Once we were reunited, we drove to Little Salkeld, intending to have a walk to Lacy’s Caves. The path has been officially closed when we’ve done that walk in the past (one of those walks here). It still is. But now there’s a big sign displayed to that effect, rather than a scrappy bit of paper tacked to a telegraph pole. We decided to head up the road a little way to Long Meg stone circle instead.
Looking to the Lake District from the new car park by Long Meg and her Sisters.A short walk to the stones.
There may be a new, and quite substantial, car park, but we still had the circle almost to ourselves.
Some of the Sisters.
It’s an amazing place and it astonishes me that it’s not more well known. (There’s more details about the stones in this post from our first visit in 2011.)
More of the stones...…which clearly need to be climbed on.Long Meg.Cup and ring mark. I think.Long Meg, with her sisters behind.More stones.And more.Dark skies over the Pennines.Another view of the stones.TBH chilling out.Family pose.Heald Brow.
Later, when we were home again, and since it was a nice evening, I was out for a local stroll.
I thought I could real-off a quick portmanteau post to dismiss the final week of July. The weather was very frustrating – I repeatedly studied the forecasts and made plans for promising looking days ahead, only for the forecasts to change and for more unpredictable, showery weather to arrive. I read a lot, and pottered around in the garden, between showers, or escaped for short local walks.
Garden Snail.
But even pottering in the garden throws up interesting, to me at least, subjects for photos, and that applies twice over to a lazy wander to Lambert’s Meadow. So I have a lot of pictures, and have decided, after all, not to try to cram them all into a single post.
Garden Snail.Late light on The Lots.Sunset from The Cove.Common Carder Bee.
Most of these photos are from our garden. Marjoram self-seeds all over the flower beds and is brilliant at attracting pollinators.
Wolf Spider. Possibly Pardosa amentata.
Marjoram leaves are not very big, so this spider was pretty tiny, but I like its mottled patterns.
One of the many forms of Harlequin Ladybird.Unidentified bug.Honey Bee – Italian?
Over the summer, I took a lot of photos in the garden, but I often missed the most interesting things that appeared. One afternoon there was a tiny, colourful Mint Moth. Another day I saw a large hoverfly, which I’m pretty sure was my first Volucella zonaria, the Hornet Hoverfly, which has the size and colouring of a hornet.
Cultivated Angelica with wasps.
This last photo is not from our garden, but from a colleague’s, who threw a party. I’m a bit rubbish at parties, small talk is just not one of my talents, so I took photos of wasps instead! I thought that this tall, striking plant looked very like Angelica, aside from the fact that the flowers were purple, and I’ve since discovered that Angelica Gigas, or Korean Angelica, has purple flowers, so I suspect that’s what this was. The wasps were obviously loving it, and I’m very tempted to get some for our garden next summer.
Three photos from a Monday evening stroll, in lovely light, the day after my Great Knoutberry Hill outing. It was a beautiful evening, but aside from the fact that I walked a route which I habitually take anticlockwise in the opposite direction for some reason, there’s not great deal to say about it.
The Lots.
On the other hand, my trip to Dentdale, and some of my other Lune Catchment walks of late, have me reflecting on how patchy my knowledge of the Dales is. When I climbed Black Combe with old friend OGS this summer (post soon to come) he was telling me about his pursuit of the Ethels, a list of 95 hills over 400m in the Peak District. Last summer, in the Adirondacks, I was very struck by the 46 – a bagger’s list of all the 4000′ peaks in the area. There must be something similar in the Dales surely? Of course there is: a quick Google revealed a book called the Dales 30, which details walks to all of the Dales Hewitts, Hewitts being hills over 2000′ which require a reascent of at least 30m, so a subset of the Tumps. This reminded me of a book I knew I had lying around somewhere, the English volume of the Nuttalls books which detail walks to all the English and Welsh 2000′ hills. In their specification, a hill has a minimum 15m drop on all sides , not 30m. Curiously, that only takes the list from 30 to 37.
Mud circles – artwork? The Cove and the sun dropping behind Hampsfell.
Looking at those 37, there are some that I’ve climbed many times, some that I haven’t climbed for ages, and some which I’m not really sure about one way or the other – I may have done them years ago, in my University days, but not since. I have several half-baked, half-finished projects on the go already, but I’m very tempted to start ticking these off too. Will I repeat all the ones I know I’ve done before? Not sure. Will I set a deadline? Definitely not. Will I ever finish my multifarious self-imposed tasks. Never! But I’ll have fun trying!
A short post for a change. Bank Holiday Monday, a good time, when the roads are busy, to keep it local. I was out twice, once for an Eaves Wood circuit, then later for a wander to Woodwell and back via The Lots and The Cove.
Bird’s-foot Trefoil, and, I think, a Mining Bee.
In Eaves Wood there’s a large clearing, which, being sheltered by trees on all sides, is a bit of a sun-trap when the weather is good. On this occasion, there were lots of butterflies about in that area. They were extremely elusive, but I did manage to get a couple of photos.
Dingy Skipper.Common Blue.Common Blue.
In amongst the trees the most commonly seen butterfly is definitely the Speckled Wood…
Speckled Wood Butterfly.The silage cut.Sunset from The Cove.
Bit of a boring post, but I’m quite happy with that I’ve decided.
Another portmanteau post to catch-up on several walks, rounding off our Easter break. The walks, over several days were: an early morning Arnside Knott walk, an evening stroll across the Lots and to The Cove, a slightly extended Jenny Brown’s Point circuit, starting through Eaves wood, and a couple of walks in the Gait Barrows and Hawes Water area.
Magpie.
It seemed to take an age this year for the Blackthorn blossom to appear, and then, when it did finally arrive, it didn’t last very long, or at least, that’s how it felt to me.
Wren.
I hear and see Wrens a lot when I’m out and about, but rarely get a chance to photograph them – unless they’re feeling particularly territorial and pick a perch to stake a claim…
Singing Wren.Female Chaffinch.Warbler – possibly a Chiff-chaff?
I’m guilty of assuming that any warbler I see is a Chiff-chaff, although in the woods you can hear them almost all the time in spring and early summer so it may not be that daft an assumption.
Arnside Knott pano – extremely hazy.Cloudy evening at The Cove.Walkers on Quaker’s Stang – Clougha Pike beyond.Godwits?
Not a great photo, I know, but I’ve seen many photos online this year of Godwits at Leighton Moss and the colour of these birds makes me think that these might be some of those. It’s here to remind me, next year, that I need to get down to the hides to see them properly for myself.
Early Bluebells by Jenny Brown’s Point.Humphrey Head and Grange across the Bay.The Wolf House.Rabbit.Blackcap.The refurbished Summer House by Hawes Water.The beck between Little Hawes Water and Hawes Water.Very busy with small fish on this occasion.Lots of Blackthorn in the hedge, but just one bush flowering.Blackthorn flowers and a hoverfly, possibly a Drone Fly.Another Drone Fly?
As well as being liberally festooned with flowers, this Blackthorn was attracting a host of insects. I spent quite a while snapping away, capturing as many as I could, thinking I was probably getting a variety of bees and hoverflies, only to find that the photos all seem to show the same species of hoverfly. Not to worry – it kept me happy for a while anyway.
Robin.Willow Catkins.Footpath through Gait Barrows.
The verges of this track through Gait Barrows had a fabulous display of Primroses. I’ve been thinking that this was a vindication of the management plans of the current warden of the reserve, but then I realised that Primroses and Cowslips, both food plants of the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly, have been planted out around the reserve. Anyway, however they get there, I really appreciate them when they’re flowering.
I’m not the only one. Dark-edged Bee-flies are very fond of them too. I did see them on other flowers this spring, but most of the time, they’re on, or close too Primroses.
A Bee and a Violet.Catkins, proving to be a bit of a puzzle – maybe Hornbeam?Warbler – Chiff-chaff?
I got very excited about the possibility that these warblers weren’t Chiff-chaffs, because they weren’t chiff-chaffing, but then I discovered that Chiff-chaffs also have contact calls, and so now I’m not so sure.
Warbler – Chiff-chaff?Robin.Blue Tit.
I don’t know whether this is a male or a female, since Im getting by on human colour perception…
The blue tit (Parus caeruleus) has been classified as sexually monochromatic. This classification is based on human colour perception yet, unlike humans, most birds have four spectrally distinct classes of cone and are visually sensitive to wavelengths in the near–ultraviolet (300 to 400 nm). Reflectance spectrophotometry reveals that blue tit plumage shows considerable reflection of UV light. For example, the blue crest shows peak reflectance at wavelengths around 352 nm. Furthermore, the blue tit is sexually dichromatic for multiple regions of plumage, including the crest. Choice trials performed in the laboratory indicate that females prefer males with the brightest crests. This study has implications for both intra– and interspecific studies of sexual selection, as well as future classification of dichromatism, which should not ignore the possibility of variation in reflectance in the UV.
If this is a male, I hope, for his sake, that he has a really bright crest.
Tiny waterfall on Leighton Beck.Fields by Black Dike.
These fields had until recently been flooded. It looked as though the dike been dredged. It was a pleasant surprise to find that I could walk home this way, especially since I’d walked past this path only a few days before…
Small bridge, very recently submerged.
To see it completely underwater and definitely unpassable without waders.
I saw a lot of Brimstone butterflies this spring, but they refused to pose for photos. The same is true, to a certain extent, of Orange-tips. This Comma was more obliging.
Dark-edged Bee-fly, Bombylius Major.Male.
It’s unusual to see a bee-fly with its wings not in motion. Even when they aren’t hovering, they still rapidly flutter their wings, which, in the case of Dark-edged Bee-flies, can make it look like they have tiny little bat-wings too small to fly with, because the clear part of the wing isn’t immediately obvious. I know that this is a male because his eyes meet in the middle. Females have a pronounced gap between their eyes.
Warbler. Chiff-chaff?
I watched a pair of birds carrying nesting material, including the feather in the photo here. I have lots of photos of them slightly out-of-focus or obscured by a branch, but for once, my patience paid-off and I managed a solitary sharp image.
Gait Barrows.Willow Catkins, and a pollen-covered Hoverfly?Cairn on the limestone pavement.View across the limestone pavement.Arnside Knott seen across the limestone pavement. Long-tailed Tit.Path through the limestone.Ash flowers.Nuthatch.Herb Paris.Blackcap.
I rarely see Blackcaps, and then I see two in consecutive days. Easter is a great time for walks around home, because the birds are all busy and, with no leaves on the trees, there’s more chance than usual of catching a photo.
Back at home, our lawn had been raked again by our mysterious nocturnal visitors…
Another cheating post! (Apparently) Which will bring 2022 to a close on the blog at long last.
Actually, these first two photos are from the tail end of November and one of our regular Jenny Brown’s Point circulars.
TBH on her way to Jenny Brown’s Point.
Then we jump forward a bit to a snowy weekend in December and a couple of late local wanders.
A snowy day in Middlebarrow Wood.Ice on seedheads.Beech leaves.Arnside Tower.
The following day, some of the snow had melted in the sunshine, but a little was still clinging on elsewhere…
Eaves Wood.Beech leaves catching the last of the sun.Looking towards Clougha from near the Pepper Pot.Sunset and Morecambe Bay.The Pepper Pot.The Cove.A layer of ice over mud.
I had high hopes that the ice would hold and keep me out of the mud. It didn’t.
Morecambe Bay.Hampsfell from ‘the beach’.
Just before Christmas, Little S tested positive for Covid. Subsequently, I felt very ill myself, but kept testing negative. Subsequently, my GP has told me that I probably did have Covid.
We still met up at Gearstones just before Christmas with all the usual suspects, but I have no photos to show for it because, still feeling rotten, I generally stayed inside and didn’t brave the snowy weather. It was great to see everyone, none-the-less.
Christmas Day Roe Deer.
With hindsight, I perhaps shouldn’t have fetched my Mum and Dad to spend Christmas with us, but it was fabulous to see them and I don’t seem to have passed on the lurgy.
Christmas Day Rainbow.Cold and damp on Morecambe Prom.
The first of May, the Saturday of the Bank Holiday weekend. The weather was obviously a bit changeable with some sunshine, but some very dark clouds and showers about too. I managed to eke out 5 miles by walking small loops, returning to the house each time; one through Eaves Wood, one via the Cove and the Lots, and finally which took me to Woodwell.
Morecambe Bay from the CoveGreen-winged Orchid on the Lots.I think this might be an Acer, but I’m not good at garden plants. I liked the cheerful colours though.Coralroot.
I’m always happy to spot the mauve flowers of Coralroot. I knew that it probably wasn’t native to this area, but didn’t realise just how rare it is in the UK.
Coralroot distribution map.Blue dots show native populations.Bottoms Wood, decked out with Wild Garlic.New Beech leavesOminous clouds and the distant Howgill Fells.
This last photo was the last of several failed attempts to catch the drama of these dark clouds with one tiny cloud on the right really catching the sun and shining quite brightly. It was quite a sight.
I would be heading out in the direction of the Howgills the following day.
Beating The Bounds 